On Cold Mountain: A Buddhist Reading of the Hanshan Poems by Paul Rouzer (review)

Despite the numerous translations and popularity of the Tang Dynasty poet Hanshan 寒山 (Cold Mountain) among Western audiences since the mid-twentieth century, no one has produced a comprehensive analysis of his corpus until now. In this first major study of Hanshan, Paul Rouzer adds new dimensions to our understanding of the poet and proposes inventive methodological directions in reading Hanshan from a Buddhist perspective and by formulating a study that is at once scholarly and popularly accessible. With his focus on the Buddhist message within Hanshan’s verse rather than the poet’s personality, Rouzer effectively illuminates the didactic and doctrinal quality that characterizes many of Hanshan’s verses, and Rouzer’s translations convey a subdued and pedantic voice that significantly differs from that of the countercultural icon fashioned by Gary Snyder or the sorrowful and frustrated scholar-official portrayed by Burton Watson.

Rouzer’s study is divided into three parts: “Part One. The Poet” reconsiders how to understand the figure of Hanshan; “Part Two. The Poems” analyzes Buddhist themes and elements within his poetry; and “Part Three. Reading Buddhists” examines selections of North American literature that correspond with Hanshan’s Buddhist inclinations.

Although Rouzer’s intention is to disavow the biographical construction of Hanshan, “Part One. The Poet” devotes considerable attention to available biographical materials and their reception in scholarship. Rouzer justly criticizes the speculative methodologies apparent within both Chinese and Western efforts to establish Hanshan’s dates and life history. Instead of reading Hanshan’s work as autobiographical, Rouzer proposes that we interpret his poetry as doctrinal teachings whose universal message transcends the poet’s individuality.

In “Part Two. The Poems,” Rouzer analyzes didactic and doctrinal elements of Hanshan’s poetry, including structural techniques designed to challenge dualistic oppositions (chap. 3, Juxtapositions); Hanshan’s criticism of the conventional life of the householder (chap. 4, At Home and Abroad); the poet’s engagement with a select number of Buddhist tropes and images (chap. 5, Tropes); and his penchant for heaping scorn on various targets of critique: wealth, scholars, fools, and the Buddhist clergy itself (chap. 6, Satire). In reading these poems as Buddhist, Rouzer translates and organizes his analysis around Zen master Hakuin Ekaku’s 白隠 慧 鶴 (1686–1768) own commentary on Hanshan. This is a valuable contribution to understanding how a Zen master interpreted and utilized Hanshan’s poetry. At the same time, I would have preferred if Rouzer organized his study as a systematic analysis of major Buddhist themes, rather than rely on a traditional eisegesis that elaborates on minor elements to express the master’s own viewpoints. Rouzer’s close readings are most interesting when attending to previously ignored features of Hanshan’s poetry, particularly the poet’s satirical techniques and his use of the image of seductive ladies, which Rouzer soundly criticizes for its misogynistic perspective. In comparison, sustained analysis of major Buddhist themes is rather sparse—the best examples limited to the images of jewels and the moon as symbols for Buddha-nature and enlightenment (pp. 124–138). While Rouzer touches on key ideas, he focuses on identifying explicit Buddhist allusions and explaining Hakuin’s commentary, rather than drawing out the underlying Buddhist significance of Hanshan’s poetics, as one would expect from an intentional Buddhist reading. Considering Rouzer’s task, there are a number of pertinent questions I would like to see addressed further: How do central Buddhist themes, such as emptiness, compassion, or linguistic inadequacy, inform the composition and interpretation of Hanshan’s corpus? How does the prevalent symbolism of Cold Mountain that is the hallmark of Hanshan’s poetics create Buddhist meaning? How would Rouzer defend interpreting Hanshan’s poems that do indeed reflect on his life events as impersonal and universal—an interpretation that significantly challenges traditional assumptions that guide the reading of Chinese poetry? In this regard, how does Hanshan express “no self”? And if he is...